After that, the wheat grew rotten with black tar.
And then the men in suits from the banks came.
Mama and Papa fought and cried at night in their room. They didn’t know, but the sound carried loud as day through the walls to where little Maria lay sniffling and Freida would lay next to her and comfort her.
And then the traveling man came.
They called him Frank. He came and drank coffee and talked with Papa, and then he talked with Mama.
Freida could never understand what the traveling man said. It sounded like gibberish to her back then. Hell, most of it sounded like gibberish now.
The traveling man talked with her parents, and right when the tide seemed poised to sweep them all away, the farm and all its decay, the tide receded and rolled back.
Soon, the wheat grew and grew plentiful; they bought a new herd of pigs. And off in the distance, a shack was erected. Frank’s—now called Uncle Frank—cabin.
In the years to come, more and more primitive buildings were added, fences went up, and people started to come and live with them on the farm.
“It’s a convent now, dear,” her mother had tried to explain.
“Like nuns, Mama?” Maria asked, childlike.
Mama smiled. “In our own way, but yes.”
Maria had smiled, too.
Freida did not.
In her dream, they grew older in a flicker of light. Now they were teens preparing to be Baptized. Uncle Frank was standing before them. Friends smiled at Maria when Maria smiled at her, allowing herself to be guided into that small, ruddy cabin with the one room and the rusted spring mattress.
“Don’t be afraid,” Mama had called out to her.
Freida turned, and there they were, as they always had been, the congregation of New Birch standing nude in a semi-circle around the cabin, chanting and praying and smiling and rejoicing with sagging breasts and bushy pubic hair and cocks shriveled by the cold.
“Don’t be afraid, child.” Now it was Uncle Frank’s voice calling to her from his handsome face, perfectly combed hair, and pencil-thin mustache.
She turned back around to face him, the once-upon-a-time traveling man who came to her farm and promised the world.
The farm had become prosperous, reborn from rot and decay. Perhaps what Uncle Frank said was true.
Freida looked to her sister.
“It’s our way to Salvation,” Maria whispered to her.
“It wasn’t always,” Freida whispered back, her cheeks blushing pink at the thought of her parents and all the others watching them, naked and unashamed. Though they should be.
Like a rubber band, her mind snapped away from the cabin in the wheat fields just before the door slammed shut. As she reeled to a new place in her mind, the sounds of rusty springs gyrating and the screams of lost virginity escaped the confines of her memory of that horrible place.
She was somewhere new. Years must have passed. Freida could feel the scars on her abdomen from when they had taken her uterus. A banner flapped from a captured breeze. The stink of something burning, sage perhaps, filled the air. Robed worshipers surrounded her. Mama and Papa were nearby; she could sense them, remember them. They were all looking toward the center, cheering and shouting jubilation.
Freida was one of the crowd, and she stared with the rest at her sister Maria. Uncle Frank stood next to her, touching her stomach as if blessing her womb. As a new father would touch his bride, or so she imagined.
My god…Maria?
Her sister was pregnant. The very thing the flock had been ritually cultivating finally came to fruition. The Son of Shg’ra.
Maria’s womb was worshipped in galvanizing hallelujahs and a herd of homeless strangers she’d never seen before, throats opened and crimson life poured out into toasted cups.
“Praise Shg’ra!” they shouted.
“Praise the Beast who provides our bounty!”
“Praise the Lord of Flies!”
“Praise Shg’ra!”
They shouted, and they danced, and somewhere far away someone screamed, shrill and loathsomely unpleasant.
Screaming.
Screaming.
The dream burned away, and Freida blinked awake.
Maria sat up in bed, sheet drawn close to her chest, screaming and gesturing to some unseen thing.
“What? What’s wrong?” Freida rubbed her eyes and glanced toward where her sister was pointing. She looked and started, sitting up and pulling her own sheets to her.
A man stood before them covered in shadow. Despite the utter darkness of himself, Freida could see he was smiling at them.
Chapter Six
“Who the hell—” Freida reached over and flipped on the light.
Maria continued to whimper, curling into a ball of sheets against the headrest of the bed. Freida whipped back around to where the shadow had been. She looked around, daunted, staring at her own reflection in the TV on the dresser.
“Where did he go?” she asked her sister.
Maria shivered under her sheet.
She rubbed her eyes. “You did see someone, didn’t you?” Freida prodded, tossing off her sheets and standing out of bed, frantically searching the hotel room. “Maria? Did you see someone or not?”
There had been a shadow of a man, right? It was dark but still, the impression was there. Laughing. Smiling. Maybe.
Maybe it was nothing. Fragments of a dream.
She turned back to her sister. “Maria?”
Her sister wiped her swollen red eyes. She sniffed, cradling her ballooned belly with one hand. “I saw…someone. I think. I think it was the man from TV.”
Freida frowned. “Man from TV?”
“The one being hunted by the police.”
“That’s not possible, Maria. He isn’t here. The police would be all over this place if he was.”
“He smelled bad. Like…”
Freida sniffed the air. “Like shit.”
Maria nodded, lips trembling.
“Are you okay?” Freida asked, smoothing out her frustration. How could anyone get in here and then vanish when the lights came on? The door was locked. How?
Maria took a breath and exhaled loudly. “I think so. This place, this hotel…it’s wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“It gives me a bad feeling.”
Freida looked around for a pair of jeans. “Well, you’re the one who insisted we stay.”
“I was tired. You were tired. This place was the best option,” Maria said tonelessly.
Finding her sneakers, Freida slipped them on. “Stay here.”
Maria gazed at her, her eyes widening. “Where are you going?”
Freida headed for the door without a word.
“Freida?” her sister called, the panic in her voice unhinged.
“Stay here. I’ll be back,” Freida called and unlatched the door.
Out in the hallway, she glanced to her left and right, looking up and down the hall for any movement or sound. There was none. Not a single voice or note of music. There was nothing but the steady hum coming from the air conditioning vents.
She started down the left side where the hallway should dead end, thinking that maybe it was later in the night than she first believed. Perhaps people in the rooms around them were sleeping. And the man Maria and she thought they saw in their room was simply the fragments of a bad night’s dream. Nothing more.
Freida continued down the hall, following the diamond-pattern carpet to the emergency exit door. Curious, she pushed on the release bar. The door wouldn’t budge.
“An emergency door that doesn’t open?” she whispered to herself.
She turned around and started back down the hallway, took two steps, and froze. Her breath seized in her throat, burning with bile.
She blinked, unsure of her own eyes.
“Sir…are…are you okay?” she managed.
Halfway down the hall, a naked man stood facing her. His face drooped as if he’d had a stroke or some sort o
f palsy. Folds of skin hung loose around his bloodied shoulder like an overstretched meat suit.
“Sir?” Not an utterance came from the naked bloodied man, but from his silence, Freida could sense a kind of suffering. Whatever the man’s deal, he was the saddest creature she had ever laid eyes on.
With his dreadful expression unchanged, he walked away.
“Mister? Do you need help?” Freida called after him.
He rounded the corner and disappeared.
Wanting noting more than to let the strange naked man vanish, she felt compelled to go after him. What if he was hurt? What if he needed help? What if…he caused trouble? That could possibly mean unwanted attention for Maria and herself.
Spurred by not entirely selfless reasons, Freida went after the man. “Sir, wait. Maybe I can—” She rounded the corner. The man was gone. “…help?” she breathed, looking back and forth.
Nothing.
No sign or bloodied footprint on the carpet. He was gone.
“What the hell is going on around here?” she said to an empty and quiet hallway and then started off toward the thick double oak doors toward the reception desk.
The lights were on out front in the lobby, but it was otherwise empty, the receptionist desk abandoned. Frustrated, Freida paced the ornate tile floor, glaring up at that mounted moose, hoping maybe someone who worked at the hotel would show up and answer a question or two. More specially, why there was a naked man walking the halls.
In the lounge area, the large LG TV was still on, still showing the news. Another breaking story but this time it wasn’t on the manhunt for mass murderer Andy Derek.
“This is Tim Seaglione,” the orange-tanned man in the brown suit said, his tone crisp and authoritative, “Channel 8 Des Moines News coming to you live with a breaking story. Out in Palo County, fire and rescue teams continue to work through the night against a massive blaze that started late afternoon. Mallard City Police Chief Joe Mitchell commented that the fire started on the New Birch Farm just within Mallard City limits…”
New Birch?
Farm?
Fire?
“…first responders are still on the scene, battling the blaze. It is unclear at this time if anyone was on the farm when the fire started. Rumors abound around New Birch and its secrecy. Frank Barnes, the known leader of the New Birch Church, has not been found for comment. Residents of Mallard have speculated for years…”
Freida stared at the TV. Unblinking. Hands trembling.
“Fire?” she whispered.
Tim Seglione continued: “…the farm once belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Franco and Garcia Gelhorn, known to neighbors as a kind and generous family. New Birch Church was based out of Des Moines during the 1950s. According to local Mallard residents, New Birch moved out to the Gelhorn Farm sometime during the 1990s. According to investigators, it is still unclear as to the cause of the fire…”
Freida saw the billowing smoke and orange flames shown on the TV being recorded live by the Channel 8 news team, a slow tic itching the corner of her lip. The buildings she had known for years burned and collapsed under a heap of glowing beams of amber. Buildings and halls and barracks that, truth be told, she had never cared much for.
What does this mean? she wondered. How did fire start? Was it on purpose? Some miraculous accident?
Her thoughts froze. A smile crept across her face. Does this mean…we’re safe? Are they all dead? Are Maria and the baby…are we finally free?
Her fists clenched and opened, clenched and opened. She danced lightly on her toes, the joy and hope of what if flooding through her, warming her ears and sending goosebumps down her spine.
“Did you need assistance?” a cold feminine voice said behind her.
Freida clutched her heart as she whirled quickly around. Before her stood the ginger-haired receptionist that had checked her and her sister into the hotel, still dressed in her black blazer and bright blue lipstick and eyeliner.
“I…” Freida mumbled, her gaze tracing the length of the woman’s body. Staring, trying not to stare below the run of her black uniformed skirt. Where her legs ought to be, two slender pole prosthetics glimmered in the glow of the lobby lights.
The receptionist shifted her weight on her artificial limbs, hands clasped behind her back, waiting patiently with her customary air of sly amusement and boredom. “Are you finding your stay here comfortable, Miss Gelhorn?”
“Stay?” Freida mumbled. “Right. Stay.” She fought to recall why she’d bothered coming to the reception desk to begin with. Clearing her throat, she began again. “There was this—man in the hallway. I think he may be hurt or lost or something.”
“Man?” The ginger mocked concern.
“Yes. He was…he wasn’t wearing any clothes.”
“Did he look really sad?”
“He did. Have you seen him? There was blood. I think he might be hurt.”
“Sounds like you saw Mr. Fenning.” The blue-lipped woman smiled. “Don’t worry about him. He’s harmless.”
Freida frowned. “So you know there’s a naked man walking around? And you don’t do anything about it? What kind of hotel is this?”
The ginger’s smile widened, exposing her large teeth. “You’ll find there are many odd things about this hotel, Miss Gelhorn.”
Freida stepped forward, ready to ask her about the other man they’d seen in their room, the grinning shadow that stunk of feces. Her mouth hung ajar, but her gaze wasn’t focused on the woman. Behind her, through the glass doors, she saw them. Standing outside in the parking lot in a single line that appeared to surround the entire hotel were hooded, faceless figures. They stood side by side, watching, glaring in through the large door.
“They—found us…” she whispered.
The receptionist followed her gaze and turned awkwardly on her prosthetic legs. “Huh, that’s new,” she said in her amused, bored voice.
Swallowing hard, Freida walked carefully toward the large glass door. Looking out into the gloom of the parking lot, she could easily see the sigil of twin serpents suckling a golden rod on the chest of each of the black robes.
New Birch Church did not parish in the fire.
They must have set the fire. But why?
Freida knew. This was the end game.
Maria’s baby; Shg’ra’s child…
They’ve come for it.
And they’ll never stop.
Never.
“Police,” Freida whispered, her gaze still on her former congregation surrounding the hotel in robes and hoods, ready for a ritual decades in the making.
“Police?” the ginger woman echoed.
Freida whipped around. “Call the police!” she yelled.
“For what purpose?” the ginger asked, starting for the reception desk, her hips swinging wide to bring each of her artificial pole legs one in front of the other.
“You don’t understand…those people out here…I know them. They’re dangerous.” Freida gestured behind her, pointing accusingly out the glass door.
The receptionist sat and resumed typing.
Freida glared at her, unsure what to do. Would it even matter if the woman called the police? Would they get here in time? Could they stop them from taking her sister’s baby? Taking a breath, she stepped away from the doors and toward the reception desk. “Don’t you even care?”
Looking up from her typing, the ginger-haired woman glanced toward the door, looking less amused now. Instead, she looked utterly and painfully bored by everything going on. “Miss Gelhorn, trust me when I say that I have seen many strange sights since my employment with Twin Pines Hotel. Whatever your issue is with these people outside is between you and them.” She smiled in her customary way and continued working.
Freida blinked, unsure what to say or do. She glanced behind her, at her old family standing as still as the dead. Watching her, the hotel. Waiting.
And then she ran through the lobby and down the hall.
Maria…I need to get
her out of here.
Chapter Seven
Freida rushed back to Room 158. Jamming in her keycard, hardly able to wait for the customary flash of green on the reader, she flung the door open. The TV in the living room area was on, some old Star Trek rerun. Captain Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and crew looked disheveled, trapped on some Earth-like planet dominated by seemingly intelligent plant life. In the bedroom, Maria was asleep on one of the queens. Glancing over at the open window, the same in the lobby, several robed faceless figures stood motionless and watching.
The hotel was surrounded, or so it seemed.
But how?
These numbers looked too great to Freida to account for the members of New Birch. Were there more, perhaps? Other churches she didn’t know about?
Had to be.
There were so many of them. Standing motionless in the dark. Watching. Waiting.
But waiting for what? Confirmation?
No, they wouldn’t be here if they didn’t know.
And they knew…somehow.
She stood in front of the window looking out at the single-line formation.
What are they waiting for? Why didn’t they come in and take what they wanted?
She glanced at her sleeping sister.
This is asylum. They want us to turn ourselves in; they want Maria to return. It’ll pass soon enough, and then they’ll come. They’ll come and take the baby. Maria’s baby.
“Maria?” Freida yelled, shuttering the thick curtains. She went to the bed. “Maria? Wake up. We have to go. Now!”
Freida stood above her sister, watching the steady rise and fall of her belly beneath the sheet. Bending over, she shook her shoulder. “Wake up! Maria? Maria? Wake up. We have to go.”
Maria stirred, still breathing in deep and slow breaths. Her eyes twitched behind her eyelids, as if she were having a dream.
“Maria!” Freida risked pushing harder on her sister. With a cold hand gripping her spine, those hooded, robed figures felt closer, surrounding her thoughts.
“Please…Maria!”
And still her sister would not wake.
Chapter Eight
13 Night Terrors Page 17